


How else could I ever be fully happy?

by J_Antebellum



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: 2019, 8 years post CoE, Children, Epilogue, F/M, Family, Love, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 20:18:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15758946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Antebellum/pseuds/J_Antebellum
Summary: 8 years after marrying Matthew, Robin comes home to find her dreams come true and Strike reflects on their good luck. Nothing is what it used to be.





	How else could I ever be fully happy?

Robin made her way quickly, pressing the pedal just a bit harder, dying to get home to her husband and children. She had gone off to Masham for the weekend to help after her her Uncle had gotten a new horse he wanted to show her and needed her help to educate the horse a little. He was growing old and sometimes, he needed her. Hell, she was growing old.

She usually took every chance she had to bring the kids up to Masham to see their maternal family and the farm they loved so much, but this time, Strike was covering her with the mountain of work they had at the office, and one-year-old Maverick was sick with the flu. In Masham it was snowing already so Robin wasn't going to get her precious little boy over there to get sicker, as much as he was dying to sit on a pony again (which he had managed before the year of age despite his father's reticence). Robin could then have taken her eldest, four-year-old Cassiopeia, with her to give their father a bit of a break having to be alone with a sick baby, but Robin's husband had reminded her how much of a help Casey was at home, being so smart and selfless like her mother, (and Robin always insisted, more like her father) so they had decided she better stay to help around. The daddy was going to be busy enough. In exchange, they would take both kids to Masham for two weeks in a bit less than a month, before they went off to St. Mawes for Christmas, as it was the turn to be with Robin's in laws. On 2018, it had been Christmas at the Ellacotts, after all. Robin was the most adamant of the couple that their children saw both of their families as frequently as possible and at the very least, twice a year, so they always manoeuvred to squeeze family visits in their complicated schedule.

Finally, Robin made it home parking under the pouring rain and pulling her suitcase quickly towards the porche. The lights of the two-storey house were off, so Robin supposed everyone was asleep. After all, Strike had sounded exhausted last they spoke on the phone, but assured her Maverick's fever has gone down a little bit, to calm down her nerves. An emerald ring sparkled next to a wedding band in her finger as she pushed the door open, locking after her.

"Hello Hedwig," Robin whispered as he heard a familiar purring and felt their cat slide between her legs. Little Hedwig was so dark in the dark hall all Robin could distinguish were her big green eyes. It had been Cassiopeia who found her as just a baby months before in the street crying under the pouring rain, and everyone knew Strike could never say no to his little princess, much less when she was crying and holding a crying baby kitten. So Hedwig had stayed and become part of the family, and Robin had started to discover, amused, how similar her husband was to a cat.

She was upstairs in Maverick's room in less than a minute, followed by Hedwig, and as she carefully opened the nursery's door, she smiled, hearing a familiar snoring inside. Her heart swelled as she saw her loving husband, an enormous snoring dark mass in the dark room, sitting on the rocking chair with an arm into the crib and his head against the crib. Robin grinned, moving to the crib and leaning to kiss the top of a curly-haired dark head. In another time, Strike would've woken up with her presence, but 45 year-old Cormoran Strike required a bit more effort, so Robin gently caressed his hair and felt herself fill with content and relaxation as she put kisses all over his face, finishing in his lips. They smiled against each other's lips and Strike stirred, groaning, and looked at her.

"Hello gorgeous," said Strike huskily, pulling her to sit on his lap as he sat straight, and burying his face in the crook of her neck as his arms enveloped her deliciously. "How was the drive back? How's everyone?" He murmured tiredly. Robin kissed the top of his curly head and stroke his cheek, lovingly.

"All good," she answered. "Did you manage okay with the kids all by yourself?"

"Yeah," Strike shrugged. "Mavey is way better, but he was clingy and needed."

"Sounds like someone I know when he's sick," Robin smiled kissing him softly. "Good thing he has such a magnificent daddy." Strike chuckled smugly.

Strike had been against having children his entire lifetime. Then Robin had gone through a rocky divorce, he had realised he loved her, and, as she had cried claiming all she wanted was a family and her job, and asking the universe if that was too much to ask, he decided she deserved it all and he wanted to give her everything. That it wasn't so much to ask.

As they dated, Strike warmed up to the idea of marriage, house, children. Seeing Nick and Ilsa's happiness with their own children made him think that perhaps if Robin was the mum he did want kids, because they would be partially hers. Robin was fine if he only wanted one, because even if she had always wanted more, she knew Strike was approaching her wishes and it was her turn to meet him in the middle.

Cassiopeia had actually been an accident. Years had gone by and Strike had become a man in his forties whose biological clock started to ask him to settle down and live calmer, and he had fallen in love with fatherhood. Casey became his princess and they became inseparable. As years passed by, Robin didn't want to ask too much out of her good luck and started accepting she would only have one child. Then Casey begged for a little sibling so insistently and stubbornly (wonder where she got it from) that at one point Robin had looked at Strike, figuring he'd be panicking, and found him smiling warmly. Then he had said:

"Why not? We're badasses at this. Let's have another kid, love."

And Robin couldn't say no to two pairs of green dark eyes even if she had wanted to.

Present Robin and Strike left the nursery's door cracked open and moved to Cassiopeia's room, where Robin kissed her daughter good night. Shortly after, the married couple was snuggled up in their bed and feeling at home in each other's arms.

"You know what I realised this weekend alone, with the boy sick?" Murmured Strike.

"That you made a terrible mistake?" Joked Robin, teasingly.

"That I was such a stupid young adult." Robin looked at him full of surprise. "Who in their right mind could ever not dream with this? Lying in the perfect home cuddled with the most extraordinary person, knowing two wonderful little persons you made are sleeping safely next door," his voice had a pang of emotion and Robin smiled. "Now I understand mum. Is not about money or success. I could manage without those, I've done before... But I don't know how I'd ever be fully happy without you three. It doesn't seem like I knew what true happiness ever was before you three."

Robin beamed, kissing him lovingly and passionately.

"Bless the administrative error that brought me to you," she whispered mid kiss, and felt his lips grin against hers.

None of them ever wanted to know what their life would be like without each other.


End file.
